THE SYRIAN CONFLICT.

How can it be resolved?

The situation in Syria is developing into a civil war, combined with sectarian differences being physically lashed out by the participants against each other, and thus making it more complicated.

Assad is rightly called "the butcher", but he actually seems to have lost control of the country, as outside influences are making him into a puppet that they can control and manipulate in any way they choose.

So, he himself is rather confused, as the Syrian security forces that are under his command are committing mayhem in cities like Homs and the countryside, of which he may not have any or very minute inkling.

Iran and its Ayatollahs are reported to have their hands in the Syrian conflict, and so making it to be more of a religious war than a revolution against Assad's brutal regime by his people.

Russia and China are also involved; and they have recently blocked a resolution by the United States and its allies, and which also has the support of the Arab League, asking Assad to step down, but all to no avail.

International pressure and sanctions have been ineffective, as the killings continue on a daily basis, with most of the dead and the injured being little children and elderly folk. The United States and its allies cannot go in to help in any military fashion, and so President Barack Obama is using every avenue possible to get humanitarian aid to the civilian population.

The case has come before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, yesterday, with Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recounting that there is no clear view of who the participants are, as it (U.S.) does not have "as clean an understanding of the nature of the opposition," he is quoted to say.

He is also said to have added that there are all sorts of elements involved. "All of the players in the region, it seems, have a stake in this," (Fox News, 02/15/12).

With all of that commotion, the Libyan war in comparison, will be a cinch, with respect to wholly knowing who the fighters are. In Syria, the conflagration has so many sides, and it will be next to impossible to intervene militarily to save the dying and the wounded.

Yet, if the Syrian war is a Sunni-Shia religious sects fighting each other, then it is not only the U.S. that is liable to quench the fire, with its allies in tow, because it is a conflict that can engulf the rest of the world as well; and so, the U.N. must do all it can by bringing all its members into reaching a soluble agreement to resolve the issue before too late.

As said before, Assad is undoubtedly a killer, but he has the backing of Iran, whose leaders may be encouraging and farther exhorting him to carry on with the carnage in Syria, perhaps, for religious reasons.